Driving Survival adds a welcomed twist to the survival horror genre

In a world of cookie-cutter game development and innumerable sequel generation, it is nice when we happen upon a game that is truly unique. Very few developers these days seem to surprise us with an innovative idea. Studio MDHR managed to pull it off last September with the release of Cuphead, but games like that are few and far between.

Ondřej Švadlena, an indie developer who goes by Soul Challenger, might have a surprise in store for us with the project he is currently working on called Driving Survival. It is a driving game that has you being chased by someone or something hellbent on taking you off the road.

While on the surface this just sounds like a typical night on any multiplayer racing game, Soul Challenger has increased the creep factor to 11 by creating a fear-inducing atmosphere. The foggy weather and deserted streets are reminiscent of Silent Hill. Seeing the headlights of a car looking to murder you in your rearview mirror instills a sense of urgency and will have you white-knuckling the steering wheel of your controller as you try to get away.

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It has been in development for several years now, but for the most part, Švadlena has been working on it alone and admitted he is no programmer. He did have a small team helping him with it for a while, but as of March 2017, he’s gone back to working on it alone.

“Current circumstances have oriented the project back into solo mode — which, thinking about it and being a non-programmer, feels quite suicidal,” Švadlena said in his development log, kept on TIG Forums. “The demo is on it’s way and progress is being made and it feels quite like a miracle at the end of every day.”

It is unknown when (or if) Driving Survival will reach commercial production. The game does not have a release date, but Soul Challenger says that he is contemplating putting it into Early Access on Steam.

Regardless of where this effort goes, this is definitely a fresh take on two overdone genres. It has so much potential that I, for one, am looking forward to a finished product.